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Tesla Model 3 drive Photo 31 of 12Real, live, production Tesla Model 3s are now out in the wild driven by real, live owners. We spent a couple hours in one Saturday and liked it. Torque delivery was impressive, cornering was remarkably stable and roll-resistant, and there were surprise-and-delight features throughout the interior.

Tesla Model 3 drive Photo 1010 of 12Real, live, production Tesla Model 3s are now out in the wild driven by real, live owners. We spent a couple hours in one Saturday and liked it. Torque delivery was impressive, cornering was remarkably stable and roll-resistant, and there were surprise-and-delight features throughout the interior.

Tesla Model 3 first drive: Yes, it's a real car, and a pretty good one too

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The Tesla Model 3, the car that is going to bring Tesla technology to the masses, is finally here. It is not here as in “in press fleets across America,” but it is sitting in the driveways of real customers who don’t work for Tesla, and that, my friends, is what counts for progress in the Willy Wonka world of Elon Musk.

So, not knowing when a real, regular loaner Model 3 would actually become available, I, uh, “borrowed” one. Where’d I get it? As they say in New Jersey, “Don’ worry ‘bout it.”

The point is that for a couple of hours yesterday I drove a fully loaded Model 3 in city and suburban traffic, around freeway on-ramps as fast as I dared go with the owner riding shotgun, and I fiddled with that 15-inch touchscreen that controls everything in the car.

And? Yes? Well? Was it what you would call a “good” car? Yes. More than good? In many, if not most ways, yes.

There are advances available in the Model 3 that it will take some more timid mainstream automakers several years and a few model cycles to put into regular cars. Those range from the obvious, like autonomous driving in the form of Tesla’s Enhanced Autopilot, to simple things like auto-dimming outside rearview mirrors on an “entry-level” car and a steering wheel that electrically adjusts while in your hands for a better fit, instead of requiring that you reach down and under it and guess where it might fit best.

But as far as the basic car-ness of the Model 3, it is a success. At least it felt pretty good after a two-hour tour of suburbia. What follows, then, is a brief introduction to Tesla’s latest and probably most important new car.

Tesla Model 3 prioritizes efficiency in its design.

I had seen a few Model 3s before, but this was the first time I was able to linger about one, open the doors, adjust the seats and close the "frunk" -- that's front trunk -- by gently pressing two palms on either side of the Tesla logo and waiting for the click -- anything else might bend the aluminum hood. There is a lot of steel that makes up this car, but some parts are aluminum.

First, the styling. The stuff is so subjective. Some people love the look, others don’t. It’s your personal taste. For my personal taste it looks too much like a jelly bean. Just because an electric car doesn’t require a front grille doesn’t mean the front end has to be a flat slab of beef. This one looks a little like the automotive equivalent of a brick wall. The roofline, which makes all that interior space possible, looks bulbous from the outside. And the rear roofline sloping down to the decklid, important for aerodynamics and cargo space, is a little too hunchbacked for my tastes. I do like the sculpted sides, and the wheels are nice, but you decide what you like. It’s not like the Nissan Leaf or the Chevy Bolt are going to appear as aspirational poster icons on the bedroom walls of any adolescents. Electric car styling in general, apart from the Model S, seems to be aimed at efficiency over style.

The $1,000 optional “Red Multi-Coat” paint looked flawless. The fit and finish was as good as any modern production car, as far as I could tell. All the panel gaps lined up perfectly. Early worries about this on some prototypes seem to be unfounded on this “production” car. The doors opened with mechanical ease. You can get the door unlock using your smartphone, then just push on the back of the handle to make the front of the handle pop out. Yank on that and the door opens. This is a much better solution than the magical proximity sensor door handles on the Model S.

Tesla Model 3's all-powerful 15-inch touchscreen

Inside, the Model 3 is big. The rear trunk is surprisingly large. Fold down those rear seats and you can carry a SpaceX rocket booster. The frunk is made to carry a roll-on suitcase -- the kind that fits in an overhead storage bin on a plane. There are clever little flip-out hooks on which you can hang plastic bags -– or, in the case of Tesla owners, the more sturdy reusable grocery bags.

The passenger compartment is comfortable enough, about what you’d expect, but the dash is what you’d have to call revolutionary. Instead of the usual phalanx of dials, gauges and vents, there’s just a long slab of wood. But not cheap wood like you’d find at Home Depot. No, this is a nice slab. You wouldn’t burn this in the fireplace. You’d mount it on the mantle. The only thing poking up from the dash’s sheer design minimalism is a 15-inch touchscreen. Remember seeing this on the Volkswagen Bulli concept car at Geneva in 2011? I’m not saying that’s where Tesla got this idea. The screen controls almost everything, which may seem like a massive headache for anyone with an older iPad, but on first impression, it seemed to be a workable solution. On second impression, you have to go down many levels deep to change from Bluetooth iPhone music to FM. On the other hand, you save a lot of money on switches and vents. And when something better comes along you can just get one of those OTAs -- over-the-air updates.

On the left side of the screen is an outline of the car, showing which doors are open or allowing you to pop the frunk. You also get: which gear you’re in, the range left in the battery and the local speed limit. The right side of the screen, taking up more than half of it, is where everything else is. By touching one of the icons on the bottom edge of the screen you can bring up the main menu, defrost, seat controls, dual climate control, fan speed, music, phone and volume. From there are those submenus to go into as much detail as you want. I didn’t spend too much time playing with the touchscreen since I’d only be driving this car for a couple hours. But if you buy one, get the full tutorial.

Tesla Model 3 front seats are fully functional but fairly ordinary

A couple really cool things: Rather than have more complex vents and flaps, the Model 3’s climate control changes fan speed at each outlet. Want more air in your face? Just drag the touchscreen icon up. The navigation screen reacted surprisingly fast -- pinch-zoom your way over to Kansas City and you’re there, no waiting. Likewise go from map to satellite view almost instantly. Hit the music icon and tell it what you want to hear and it plays it. I said, “Mott The Hoople” and by golly it played Mott The Hoople. Spend more time on this and you’ll discover more cool features.

Many functions on the screen operate through a free 4G connection. How long the 4G will be free is not clear, but it’s free now so take advantage of it.

Now for the drive. The car I had, as with all the cars being sold now, was pretty much fully loaded. While the theoretical base Model 3 will get a 50-kWh battery and sell for $36,000, my car had everything on it and sold for $60,500. That included: the Long Range Battery ($9,000), good for 310 mile range; Premium Upgrades ($5,000); Red Multi-Coat paint ($1,000); 19-inch wheels ($1,500); Enhanced Autopilot ($5,000); and Full Self-Driving Capability ($3,000). About that Full Self-Driving Capability: It has the capability but not the ability yet. Tesla says, “In the future, Model 3 will be capable of conducting trips with no action required by the person in the driver’s seat. This feature is dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval, which may vary by jurisdiction.”

My car, with the Long Range battery, makes 258 hp, according to the EPA. Tesla doesn’t list those figures. Tesla says its rear-drive Model 3 will get to 60 mph in 5.1 seconds. I brought the VBox with me for the drive, but the car’s owner was understandably hesitant to do drag strip launches on crowded public streets. Can’t say I blame him, but I have no doubt this would get into the four-second range to 60 mph with our NHRA-sanctioned 1-foot rollout.

The Model 3 is ready to go when you enter it with your registered phone in your pocket. There’s nothing so droll as a key here, (though we wonder what happens when some street urchin steals your phone). Put your foot on the brake and flip the right stalk sticking out of the steering wheel down, and the screen indicates you’re in D. Off you go.

Tesla Model 3 at the beach

First thing you notice is that the car is remarkably quiet. For a while I thought I heard a slight booming inside, but that was only because I’d flipped the rear seat down. Flipped up it was serenely silent. There’s very little noise coming from the tires or from wind wafting over that bulbous exterior. On some electric cars, you can hear the motor whining a little intrusively, but not on the Model 3.

Acceleration is what I’d call brisk. First time I hit the gas -- or, rather, the accelerator -- was in mid-range, about 30 mph to 50 mph. It launched impressively. There’s a lot of torque here, reportedly 307 lb-ft of it, though again, Tesla doesn’t say. Before I knew it, I was up to 70 mph. Top speed of the Long Range Model 3 is a claimed 140 mph. I didn’t try that out.

Next I tried out a few freeway on-ramps, which was as close as I was going to get to a road course on this drive. With a curb weight for the Model 3 with the big battery listed at 3,814 pounds, and even though 52 percent of that is on the rear wheels, you might think it’d wallow around a little in a turn. But the Model 3 showed very little body roll. The feel through the wheel is not exactly that of a sports sedan, but compared to any other electric vehicle on the market, it’s communicative. I never really pushed it into understeer or oversteer, despite its rear-wheel drive, but maybe, if a test car materializes, I could fling it a little faster through some more proper turns. At first blush, though, the handling is promising.

Next up was Tesla’s $5,000 Enhanced Autopilot. I’ve generally enjoyed this feature on other Teslas, minus the wiggle of the steering wheel it requires every two minutes. I would love to try out the new Cadillac Super Cruise system so I’d have something to compare this one to. But as it is it’s either the most advanced or the second-most-advanced system on the market. Tesla says it’ll match speed to traffic conditions, keep within a lane, automatically change lanes, transition from one freeway to another, exit the freeway and park at your destination. I tried out all but the last two, and it performed as advertised. It’s particularly helpful in stop-and-go traffic.

For another $3,000, you get that “Full Self-Driving Capability,” which at this point is theoretical, “…dependent upon extensive software validation and regulatory approval.” Looking forward to that.

So is the Model 3 best in class? Well, it’s bigger than the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Bolt and most of the rest of the competition, so it might be in a class of its own. Should you buy this instead of a Leaf? If you have the cash –- because all they’re delivering now are full-zoot models -- and if you don’t mind waiting. Tesla’s website says deliveries will take “one to three months.” Is that optimistic? I don’t know. Are there really hundreds of thousands of buyers in line? If so, it would be longer than a three-month wait, wouldn’t it? Check with Tesla to see where your spot in line would be. As for the styling, there really isn’t an attractively styled electric car anywhere, is there?

The room inside, the surprise-and-delight features, the acceleration all fall into the plus category. At this point, I’ll say so far so good, Tesla. I would like to spend more time in one of these. Tesla?